Bringing the bodies home: JJ Murphy and the ‘Pickled Earl’

The monument to Lady Eva Constance Aline Bourke (1858-1940), Countess of Dunraven, in Saint Nicholas’ Church, Adare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Patrick Comerford

I was in Saint Nicholas’ Church, Adare, Co Limerick, last week to preach at the Harvest Thanksgiving Service.

Throughout this beautiful church, there are many monuments to the Wyndham-Quin family of Adare Manor, Earls of Dunraven. One monument recalls, Lady Eva Constance Aline Bourke (1858-1940), who became the Countess of Dunraven when she married Windham Wyndam-Quin (1857-1952), the 5th Earl of Dunraven.

Lady Eva was born in the Chief Secretary’s Lodge in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, now the residence of the US ambassador. She was the elder daughter of Richard Southwell Bourke (1822-72), the 6th Earl of Mayo, a former Governor-General of Mayo, who became known as the ‘Pickled Earl’ due to the circumstances surrounding his state funeral.

A similar funeral story involves Jeremiah James Murphy (1795-1851), who died in Pisa. He was part of a prosperous and adventurous merchant family in Cork involved in the Murphy distillery in Cork. His family members included John Murphy (1772-1847), Bishop of Cork, the Biblical scholar, the late Jerome Murphy-O’Connor (1935-2013), whose obituary I wrote for The Irish Times, and the late Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor (1932-2017), former Archbishop of Westminster.

The death of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor last month [1 September 2017] reminded once again of the story of JJ Murphy’s funeral.

I told the story of both Victorian funerals last year in ‘Bringing the bodies home: JJ Murphy and the ‘Pickled Earl’,’ which was published as Chapter 40 in Death and the Irish: a miscellany, edited by Salvador Ryan (Dublin: Wordwell, 2016), pp 151-154.

Palmerstown House, the former home of the earl of Mayo. Photo: Patrick Comerford, 2016

Bringing the bodies home:
JJ Murphy and the ‘Pickled Earl’

Patrick Comerford

Air travel has reduced the stress when grieving Irish families have to arrange to bring home the bodies of loved ones who have died on foreign shores but want to be buried in their native soil.

It was not so easy in Victorian days, though, and families either had to accept someone was going to be buried overseas and or had to find innovative, sometimes even irreverent, ways to bring home the bodies for burial.

Jeremiah James Murphy (1795-1851), of Lota Park, Co Cork, came from a prosperous and adventurous merchant family in Cork who lived in Ringmahon House. His father, James Murphy, with two of his brothers, established the Murphy distillery in Cork, while his uncle, John Murphy (1772-1847), was Bishop of Cork.

Jeremiah’s nearest brother, John James Murphy (1796-1883), led an extraordinary life. As a teenager, John sailed the South China Seas and supposedly fought at the Battle of Trafalgar. In his 20s he went to Canada and become a frontiersman for the Hudson Bay Trading Company. While he was in Canada, John was elected chief of a tribe and became known as ‘The Black Eagle of the North’. He returned to Liverpool in the 1820s to go into the family business, went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Rome in the late 1830s, then studied for the priesthood, and eventually became Archdeacon of Cork. When he died, he was buried in the Murphy family plot in Carrigrohane.

That spirit of adventure rubbed off on John’s elder brother, Jeremiah, who was in his 50s when he went on the grand tour of Italy. During that tour, he died in Pisa on 29 November 1851. But getting his body home to Ireland proved difficult for his family because the sailors at Naples feared taking the coffin would on board would bring them bad luck at sea. The Murphy family proved resourceful, however, and outwitted the Italian sailors by putting Jeremiah’s body in an upright piano which they then shipped back to Ireland. He was buried almost two months later, on 18 January 1852 in Carrigrohane, Co Cork – still in the upright piano. His widow Catherine (Bullen) lived on until 1872, and his sons set up James J. Murphy’s Brewery in Cork in 1854. The descendants of this branch of the Murphy family include Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and the Biblical scholar, the late Jerome Murphy-O’Connor.

Richard Southwell Bourke (1822-72), of Palmerstown House, Co Kildare, was the sixth earl of Mayo. He was murdered in India in 1872 and is buried in Johnstown Churchyard, near Naas, Co Kildare. He is known as the ‘Pickled Earl’, since his body was preserved in a vat of rum on the long journey back to Ireland following his assassination.

Bourke was born in Dublin in 1822 and educated at Eton and Trinity College Dublin. He was descended from the de Burgo family; his great-grandfather, Joseph Deane Bourke, the third earl of Mayo, was the Church of Ireland bishop of Ferns and Leighlin (1772-82) and archbishop of Tuam (1782-94); and his grandfather, Richard Bourke, was bishop of Waterford and Lismore (1813-32).

A Celtic cross marks the earl of Mayo’s grave in Johnstown, Naas, Co Kildare. Photo: Patrick Comerford, 2016

From 1849, Richard Bourke was known as Lord Naas, a courtesy title in his family. In County Kildare his tenants saw him as a good landlord, and during the famine he attended public meetings and supported the Dublin Central Relief Committee. After travelling in Russia, he entered politics and was elected Conservative MP for Kildare in 1847, and later sat as MP for Coleraine, Co. Derry.

He was three times chief secretary of Ireland (1852, 1858-9 and 1866-8), and in 1867 he succeeded his father as the sixth Earl of Mayo. Two years later, he became the Viceroy and Governor-General of India in 1869. Before leaving for India he gave instructions that should anything happen to him his body was to be brought back for burial in Johnstown.

In India, he was known for his reforming legislation. He consolidated the borders of India, reorganised finances so that a budgetary deficit was turned into a surplus, planned widespread irrigation, built roads and railways, undertook India’s first census, and founded Mayo College, since known as ‘India’s Eton’.

In 1869 he negotiated a close alliance with the Emir of Afghanistan, Shir Ali Khan, to offset Russia’s influence in the region. But while he was visiting a convict settlement at Port Blair in the Andaman Islands, he was attacked by an Afghan convict, Sher Ali Afridi, who murdered him with a knife on 8 February 1872. His dying words were words of forgiveness.

Lord Mayo’s partially-embalmed body was shipped home to Ireland, but in order to delay decomposition, his body was placed in a rum-filled cask … and so he became known as ‘the Pickled Earl’. To add spice to the story, when the cask was opened the body was there but there was no rum. Had it leaked out? Had it evaporated? Had it been drained off by the crew?

After a state funeral in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, Lord Mayo was buried on 26 April 1872 in Johnstown churchyard. He is commemorated by the large Celtic cross in Johnstown and the ‘Mayo Window’ at the east end of the North Aisle in St Patrick’s Cathedral. There is a statue to him too in the Cumbria fishing town of Cockermouth, where he was MP before he went to India.

His son, Dermot Bourke (1851-1927), seventh Earl of Mayo, became a member of the Senate of the Irish Free State. While he was a senator, Palmerstown House was burned by the IRA in 1923.

Apart from Mayo College, there are Mayo Halls in Allahabad and Bangalore, and a Mayo Hospital and a Mayo School of Arts in Lahore.

● Bringing the bodies home: JJ Murphy and the ‘Pickled Earl’ was first published as Chapter 40 in Death and the Irish: a miscellany (ed Salvador Ryan), Dublin: Wordwell, 2016, pp 151-154.

A mediaeval churchyard and the grave of a murdered viceroy

Lord Mayo’s grave and the old churchyard in Johnstown, Co Kildare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

In recent months, I have been working on two chapters to a book on death in Ireland. The book is being edited by my friend and colleague, Professor Salvador Ryan of Maynooth, and I am writing about stories of death in the Irish way associated with the hymn writer Henry Francis Lyte and with the 6th Earl of Mayo.

This afternoon, two of us went to the village of Johnstown, north of Naas, Co Kildare, to photograph Lord Mayo’s grave and the old churchyard where he is buried.

Johnstown is just 2 km north of Naas, off the N7 at junction 8, and about 25 km from Dublin City Centre. It is close to racecourses like Naas, Punchestown and the Curragh ad so the surrounding countryside is the heart of the bloodstock industry, with many well-known Kildare stud farms.

The Main Street was once part of the main road between Dublin and Cork and Limerick. The main road eventually by-passed Johnstown in 1964 When the Naas Dual Carriageway was finished in 1964, Johnstown was bypassed, and Johnstown became a sleepy village.

But in recent decades Johnstown has been encircled by housing estates, so that it has become a commuter town too.

There is evidence of human activity in the area from early times, and the “holed” stone in a field at the southern end of the village is said to be astronomically aligned to the mid-summer solstice.

But this afternoon I was in search of the ruins of the mediaeval church. From the Middle Ages, this was a priory of the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John of Jerusalem, or the Knights of Rhodes, who give their name to the village, which was known in Irish as Fraoch Oileán.

The knights’ regional headquarters or commandery was at nearby Kilteel, and they also had an abbey in Naas.

Nearby Palmerstown takes its name from pilgrims who visited the Holy Land and brought sprigs of palm as a token of their pilgrimage or, perhaps, after a family named Palmer.

Palmerstown was one of the properties held by the Knights Hospitallers in Ireland and confirmed by Pope Innocent III in 1212.

Thomas Hibernicus of Palmerstown was living in the Monastery of Aquila in Italy in 1270. His major work was a collection of flores or “flowers) of wisdom” from nearly all the then European Doctors of Philosophy or Theology. His book became a reference work and was reprinted many times in the following centuries.

The octagonal base of a mediaeval baptismal font within the walls of the ruined church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The Flatsbury or de Flatebry family owned Palmerstown as early as 1286, although the knights held on to the church at Johnstown. The old church has a number of mediaeval fragments, including a ruined piscina, the octagonal base of a mediaeval baptismal font, and a flat stone slab with carved with coats of arms representing the Wogan and Flatsbury families. This has been taken to be the grave slab of James Flatsbury who married Eleanor Wogan in 1436.

The grave slab of James Flatsbury and Eleanor Wogan, who were married in 1436 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

In 1503, Philip Flatsbury, a scholar and scribe, compiled The Red Book of Kildare for Garret ‘Og’ Fitzgerald, 9th Earl of Kildare. This book, which lists documents relating to the Fitzgerald estates, went missing after the Rebellion of ‘Silken Thomas,’ 10th Earl of Kildare, but is now in Trinity College Dublin.

The church has been in ruins since the 16th century, but continued to be a burial place for the Bourke family, Earls of Mayo. There are Bourke graves throughout the churchyard but it is best-known for the grave of the 6th Earl of Mayo, the viceroy who was killed in India in 1872.

In the 1641 Rebellion, James Flatesbury took the side of the Confederates, and his estates including Johnstown and Palmerstown, were confiscated. They were later granted to Theobald Bourke, third son of John Bourke, a Captain of Horse under the Duke of Ormond in the Confederate Wars. He had settled in Kill but moved to Palmerstown around 1688. He was the Sovereign (Mayor) of Naas in 1700, 1711 and 1724.

His nephew, John Bourke, acquired the titles of Lord Naas (1776), Viscount Mayo (1781) and Earl of Mayo (June 1785). Joseph Bourke, Archbishop of Tuam, succeeded as the third Earl of Mayo before he died in 1807.

The estate cottages in Johnstown built in the ‘Gothic Revival’ style in the 19th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The charm of the village is enhanced by the estate cottages built in the ‘Gothic Revival’ style in the 19th century, and they are mentioned by William Makepeace Thackeray in his Irish Sketchbook in 1842.

The most famous member of the family was Richard Southwell Bourke (1822-1872), 6th Earl of Mayo. He was born in Dublin on 21 February 1822 and was known in earlier life as Lord Naas, and was the Chief Secretary of Ireland on three occasions between 1852 and 1866.

In 1868, the Disraeli government appointed him Governor-General and Viceroy of India, but he was assassinated there in February 1872. Before leaving for India he had chosen a place for his grave in Johnstown, and he is buried within the walls of the ruined church, under a Celtic cross.

The Celtic Cross and grave of Lord Mayo within the ruined mediaeval church in Johnstown (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

After his death, the government decided that a new Palmerstown House should be erected at public expense in his honour. The next owner of Palmerstown was Dermot Robert Wyndham Bourke, who was 21 when his father was assassinated and who succeeded him as 7th Earl of Mayo. In 1891, he was instrumental in convening a meeting in Palmerstown that led to setting up the Kildare Archaeological Society.

The seventh Earl of Mayo was appointed to the new Senate by the first Irish Free State Government in 1922. His house was burned down during the Civil War in January 1923. Lord Mayo received compensation and the house was re-built, and he lived in one of the gate lodges on the estate until the house was rebuilt. He moved to England soon after and died in a nursing home in London in December 1927.

Palmerstown House and stud were sold to WJ Kelly, a gentleman’s outfitter in Clanbrassil Street, Dublin, who was known to his friends as ‘Trousers’ Kelly. He established Palmerstown as one of the leading studs in Ireland.

Opposite the old churchyard, the Johnstown Inn was once a busy coaching stop. The first inn was built on this site in the 1640s, during the Confederate wars. It became known as the Mayo Arms and the Cork mail coach was stopped there and burned at the start of the 1798 Rising. In the 19th century, it was the meeting place of the Kildare Hunt. More recently, it was known as the Osta John Devoy.

From Johnstiown, we drove out into the countryside, through the stud farms and the open fields, past the racecourses at Punchestown and Naas, before eventually arriving in Newbridge, where we stopped for double espressos in the café at Newbridge Silverware.

Bourke family graves in the churchyard in Johnstown (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

A history of the Church of Ireland on Inishbiggle

Looking across to Inishbiggle from Bullsmouth ... the Heinrich Böll Memorial Weekend includes a lecture on the history of the Church of Ireland on the island (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Patrick Comerford

This island is unique in Ireland. While other islands, such as Valentia in Co Kerry may have both Catholic and Church of Ireland churches, Inishbiggle is the only island with only a Church of Ireland church. In addition, Holy Trinity Church, on the eastern side of this island, is the oldest and probably the only truly historical building on the island, and perhaps also its most beautiful building.

We can say that Inishbiggle is an island off an island, but we could also call it a new island, for it has been inhabited continuously for less than two centuries.

At the time of the Tudor Reformation in Ireland, Inishbiggle was part of the larger Co Mayo estates claimed by the Butler Earls of Ormond as heirs to the Butlers of Mayo, and those claims were confirmed to Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond, at the Composition of Connaught in 1585, and again in a grant from King James I in 1612.

The Ormond Butlers’ loyalty to the Tudor and Stuart monarchies made them key figures in implementing the Anglican Reformation in Ireland. The Butler Lordship of Achill included Inishbiggle, and continued until 1696, when the Butlers leased their Mayo estates first to Sir Thomas Bingham and then to Thomas Medlycott. Later in the 18th century, the Medlycott family was facing financial difficulties and sold the estate to John Browne of Westport House, 1st Earl of Altamont, in 1774. He sold it back to the Medlycotts but the estates, including Achill Island and Inishbiggle, were bought by Sir Neal O’Donel of Newport House in 1785 – for £33,598 19s 4d.

Although the O’Donel family built the Church of Ireland parish church at Burrishole for Newport, and despite continuous ownership of Achill and Inishbiggle by leading members of the Church of Ireland since the Reformation, no Church of Ireland churches were built on these islands until the mid-19th century.

And, despite this continuous record of ownership for many centuries, the history of Inishbiggle as an inhabited island is recent, modern history, for the island remained uninhabited until 1834.

Saint Thomas’s Church, Dugort ... the centre of Edward Nangle’s mission work on Achill and Inishbiggle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

In 1837, there was no church on either Achill Island or Inishbiggle, and the Rector, Canon Charles Wilson, reported that Sunday services held were held in a private house. That year, the Achill Mission approached the O’Donel estate about leasing Inishbiggle. Sir Richard O’Donel himself admitted at one stage that his Achill estates had provided him with little income, and he certainly was unwilling to invest any of his dwindling fortune into helping his tenants.

A year later, by 1838, a few buildings had started to appear on the island, and in 1839 a prominent Church of Ireland author and clergyman of the day, the Revd Caesar Otway (1780-1842), known for his advocacy on behalf of the poor, visited Inishbiggle.

Otway had earned a reputation for studying and seeking to improve the conditions of the poor in the west of Ireland. At the time of his visit to Inishbiggle, he was the assistant chaplain at the Magdalen Asylum in Dublin, and his writings, expressing his concerns for the poorest people in Ireland, include Sketches in Ireland (1827), A Tour in Connaught (1839), and Sketches in Erris (1841). Otway suggested Inishbiggle as ideal place for growing wheat and proposed building a mill on the island, but his proposals were never followed through.

Otway might have been the most important 19th century Church of Ireland clergyman to visit Inishbiggle but for the arrival of the Revd Edward Nangle as part of his endeavours to extend the work and scope of the Achill Mission.

In 1841, Inishbiggle had a population of 67 living in 12 houses.

During the difficult Famine years immediately after the death of Caesar Otway, Inishbiggle developed slowly, with the arrival of both Protestants and Catholics from Achill Island and from mainland Co Mayo, settling on Inishbiggle to take advantage of lower rents and in the hope of finding better living conditions.

The Revd Canon Edward Nangle (1800-1883) ... a portrait in Saint Thomas’s Church, Dugort (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

In March 1848, hundreds of people from Dooniver, Bullsmouth and Ballycroy approved a declaration of thanks to Canon Nangle for supplying them with potatoes and turnips from one of the mission farms in Inishbiggle. Without the food, they said, they would have starved. As Anne Falvey writes, “Despite the criticisms heaped upon him, we can only surmise how much more tragic the situation would have been but for the charitable efforts of Nangle and hundreds of generous donors.”

The first schoolhouse was built on Inishbiggle that year. But by 1851, the population had dropped to 61 people, living in ten houses. A year later, Edward Nagle and the Trustees of the Achill Mission at Dugort bought Inishbiggle from Sir Richard O’Donel of Newport in 1852. The trustees of the mission were the Hon Somerset Richard Maxwell, the Right Hon Joseph Napier, George Alexander Hamilton, and Edward Nangle. Apart from Nangle, the other three trustees came from families with strong church associations.

The Radisson Blu Farnham Estate Hotel ... Farnham House had once been the home of Somerset Maxwell, a trustee of the Achill Mission (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

1, Somerset Maxwell (1803-1884), who had briefly been the Tory MP for Co Cavan (1839-1840), was a grandson of Henry Maxwell, Bishop of Meath, and the son of the Revd Henry Maxwell (1774-1838), 6th Lord Farnham. Bishop Maxwell had built Saint Mary’s Church of Ireland parish church in Bunclody, Co Wexford, then known as Newtownbarry after the Maxwell-Barry family – of interest to us this morning as we are honouring John F Deane this weekend on his 70th birthday, and his father, like my Comerford ancestors, came from Bunclody.

Somerset Maxwell eventually succeeded his brother Henry Maxwell in 1868 as the 8th Lord Farnham, but, while he inherited the Farnham estate in Co Cavan, by then the Farnham or Maxwell-Barry estate in Newtownbarry had been sold as an encumbered estate. It may have been through the influence of Somerset Maxwell and his family that a number of Cavan Protestant families came to Achill, such as the Sherridan family.

2, Joseph Napier (1804-1882), later Sir Joseph Napier, was MP for Dublin University (1848-1858), Attorney General for Ireland (1852), and Lord Chancellor of Ireland (1858-1859). However, he was not a member of the same Napier family that I recently identified as the Irish ancestors of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Justin Welby.

George Alexander Hamilton's memorial in Saint George's Church, Balbriggan, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

3, George Alexander Hamilton (1802-1871) was an MP for Dublin City (1835-1837) and then for Dublin University (1843-1859), and a clergyman’s son too – he was the son of the Revd George Hamilton of Hampton Hall, Balbriggan, Co Dublin, and he contributed generously to the building of Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan, where he is buried.

But, despite the wealth, power and privilege of these trustees and their strong clerical family links with the Church of Ireland, Inishbiggle long remained without a church and Holy Trinity Church was not built until the end of the 19th century.

Griffith’s Valuation shows there were 18 families living on this island in 1855: their family names were Cafferky (2), Campbell (1), Cooney (1), Fallon (2), Henery (i.e., Henry) (1), Landrum (1), McDermott (1), McManmon (1). Mealley (i.e., Malley or O’Malley) (4), Molly (or Molloy) (1), Nevin (1), Reaf (1) and Sweeny (1).

By 1861, Inishbiggle had 32 houses and a population of 145. By 1871, there were 30 houses with 154 people. By 1881, there were 171 people in 29 houses.

But by the 1880s, emigration was taking its toll from the Church of Ireland community on both Achill and Inishbiggle. The Rector of Achill, the Revd Michael Fitzgerald, gave some idea of the scale of that emigration when he wrote: “During the months of April and May 1883, and within the last ten days, I have lost by the rapid tide of free emigration to Canada, the United States of America, and Australia, forty-two members of my flock, thirty-six of whom belong to Achill Sound, and six to the island of Inishbiggle.”

It was a very steep fall indeed. By 1891, the population had fallen by 36 to 135, living in 24 houses – a population figure and a figure for housing units that were both lower than they had been a generation earlier in 1861.

In 1901, the census shows the population was still 135 people living in 25 houses on the island. Of these, 39 people or 29 per cent of the population were members of the Church of Ireland. The following Church of Ireland members were living in 11 households on this island:

● Michael Henry (62); his wife Anne Henry (60); son James Henry (25); daughter Margaret K Miller (30); and father-in-law Patrick Gallagher (88). (Numbers, 5).

● John Henry (70) and his two Roman Catholic daughters, Mary Henry (30) and Margaret Henry (17). (Numbers, 1).

● Patt Malley (55), one of the workers who built this church; his wife Catherine Malley (50), and their five children Ellen (16), Honor (14), Patt (12), Celia (10) and Sarah (6). (Numbers, 7).

● Edward Calvey (60) and his Roman Catholic wife Anne Calvey (60), and their five children, of whom one was a Roman Catholic and four were members of the Church of Ireland: John (33), Roman Catholic; Edward (29), Church of Ireland; Peter (23), Church of Ireland; Michael (19), Church of Ireland; and Timothy (12), Church of Ireland. (Numbers, 5).

● Patrick McManmon (60); his wife Mary (60); and their seven children Mary (27), Frank (25), Ellen (23), Bridget (20), Patrick (16), Kate (15), and James (12). (Numbers, 9).

● James McManmon (74), his two Roman Catholic sisters, Mary McManmon (72) and Bridget Doran (57), and his two Roman Catholic nieces, Ellen Doran (25) and Kate O’Boyle (34). (Numbers, 1).

● James Sheerin (69), his wife Martha Sheerin (69), their daughter, Kate Sydney Sheerin (30) and a Roman Catholic servant, Anne Cafferkey (20).(Numbers, 3).

● Matilda Brice (66), a widow who lived alone. (Numbers, 1.)

● John Gallagher (42), his wife Mary Gallagher (50) and their sons Edward (14) and Francis (13). (Numbers, 4.)

● Francis Gallagher (84), who lived alone. (Numbers, 1.)

● John McManmon (65), his Roman Catholic wife Catherine McManmon (62), and their two sons, one Church of Ireland, Frank (24) and one Roman Catholic, Martin (21). (Numbers, 2.)

Martha Sheerin (1834-1917) was a daughter of George Lendrum (1799-1871), a Scripture Reader who moved to Dugort with Edward Nangle in 1834. She was born in Dugort in 1834, and is an interesting example for this morning’s study, for through her father’s family she is related to many families on Inishbiggle and Achill. The Lendrum family was intermarried with the Egan, Geraghty, McDowell, McHale, McNamara, Patton and Sherridan families. Within a few generations, these families became related not only to most of the Church of Ireland families on these islands, but to many of the other families too.

Ten years later, the 1911 census shows the Church of Ireland inhabitants had dropped in number to 36, living in ten households, while the general population of the island had risen to 149 people living in 29 houses or units. The Church of Ireland population was now 24 per cent. In other words, the island’s population was rising, but the Church of Ireland population was dropping, and the fall in numbers would have been greater but for the arrival of a school teacher and his family.

The Church of Ireland people on the island were:

● James McManmon (82) (the rest of his family, two sisters, two nieces and a grand nephew, are all Roman Catholics). (Numbers, 1.)

● Edward Calvey (73), his wife Ann Calvey (69), one Roman Catholic son, John Calvey (48), and four Church of Ireland sons: Edward (46), Peter (44), Michael (39), and Timothy (33). (Numbers, 6.)

● Patrick McManmon (74), his wife Mary (70), and their four children Mary (41), Ellen (38), Patrick (30), James (26). (Numbers, 6.)

● James Henry (35), his mother Ann Henry (70), and his Roman Catholic niece, Margaret Henry (16). (Numbers, 2.)

● John Gallagher (59) and his son Francis Gallagher (23). (Numbers, 2.)

● Pat O’Malley (70), his wife Catherine O’Malley (60), and their three daughters, Honor (24), Celia (19) and Sarah (16). (Numbers, 5.)

● Michael Gallagher (44), his wife Mary Gallagher (31) and their four children Margaret (8), John (7), Mary (5), and Ellen (3). (Numbers, 6.)

● Martha Sheerin (77), by now a widow, her daughter, Kate Sydney Sheerin (40), and a Roman Catholic servant, Julia Cafferkey (17). (Numbers, 2.)

● John Tydd Freer (42), his wife Annie (39) and their two daughters and one son, Olive May (13), Dorothy Margaret (9) and Charles Crawford Freer (5). He was a teacher, born in Queen’s Co, she was born in Co Galway, the first two children were born in Dublin, and their son was born in Co Mayo. (Numbers, 5.).

● Matilda Bryce (73), who was living alone. (Numbers, 1.)

As we are paying tribute to John F Deane this weekend, it is worth remembering how the arrival of a teacher-family can have a major impact on the life of an island. Without the arrival of the Freer family on Inishbiggle, the decline in the Church of Ireland population would have been steeper. So, despite the recent building of Holy Trinity Church, there was never the potential or realistic hope for a sustainable Church of Ireland parish on Inishbiggle.

There are variations in the spellings and ages given at each census, but these are easily reconciled.

In 1912, a Mr Fenton wrote to the Department of Education, saying there were 16 families on the island, of whom 14 were Roman Catholic and two were part of the Church of Ireland.

A list of school-going children attending the mission school on the island that year shows there were 41 Roman Catholic children and six Church of Ireland children on the island: Margaret (8) John (6) and Mary (5) Gallagher, and Harold (11), Dorothy (9) and Charles (5) Freer; 34 Roman Catholic children and five Church of Ireland children were attending the Church of Ireland-run school, which was still known as the Mission School.

What these returns and statistics tell us is that the Church of Ireland community on Inishbiggle was never large enough to give hope to a sustainable parish developing on the island, and that by the beginning of the second decade of the last century, the community was in decline, with numbers falling as the original settlers on the island reached old age and died.

Nevertheless, they lived in more prosperous conditions, albeit marginally so, and they show a higher standard of literacy and education. Indeed, this higher standard of education made it easier for their children to emigrate, because their job prospects were higher than those of their neighbours.

Their family names also indicate that, by and large, the members of the Church of Ireland on the island shared the ethnic or social backgrounds of their neighbours: Calvey, Gallagher, Henry, MacManmon, Malley or O’Malley, Sheerin, and so on. We can also see from the patterns of family membership that there is an interesting degree of inter-marriage between Protestant and Catholic families, despite the negative attitudes that would have been prevalent in both communities at the time.

Holy Trinity Church, Inishbiggle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

By 1971, Charles Crawford Freer, by then Press Officer for the Church of Ireland, reported that the Church of Ireland population of Inishbiggle had fallen from 15 to five.

When I visited Holy Trinity Church and Inishbiggle in 1990, there were three members of the Church of Ireland on the island. The last surviving members of the Church of Ireland congregation were James Gallagher, grandson of Patrick O’Malley, who built this church in the 1890s, and his sister Ellen. When Ellen Gallagher died in 1995, she was buried in Achill Sound Cemetery. Her brother James continued to look after the Church which he opened frequently during the summer for services led by visiting clergy on holiday.

Although one diocesan history states this church was built by the Achill Mission, the Achill Mission had long closed by the time the church was built in the 1890s not with mission funds but through an initial generous donation of £600 from a Miss Ellen Blair of Sandymount, Dublin.

In 1893, the Bishop of Tuam, the Right Revd James O’Sullivan (1834-1915), and the Diocesan Architect, John G Skipton (1861-1921), came to Inishbiggle by boat on a five-mile journey from Achill Sound to select a site for the new church. They were accompanied by the Revd Michael Fitzgerald, Rector of Achill, and the Revd R O’Connell.

On “a fine day” in 1895, Bishop O’Sullivan, his wife and the Rector returned to lay the foundation stone for Holy Trinity Church. It was reported at the time that the local people were “joyful” at the prospect of having a church of their own.

The contractors were Berry and Curran, and the work was carried out by local labourers. The story is told that during this building work a heavy piece of wood crashed to the ground, just missing Patrick O’Malley, who was rescued thanks to the hasty intervention of Patrick Nevin.

The building work was completed by 1896. Bishop O’Sullivan came from Achill Island to Inishbiggle, this time on “a sunny day,” with a large number of people in rowing boats for the consecration of the new church. The consecration was followed by a celebration of the Holy Communion.

The church is built of stone with a natural pebble-dash finish, a small tower with a bell and cross and a wrought-iron gate. In summertime, this church is even prettier as the pink rhododendrons surrounding it come into bloom and form an archway.

Inside Holy Trinity Church, Inishbiggle (Photograph: Dan MacCarthy, 2012)

With its white walls and intimate size, Holy Trinity Church has a simple, plain interior that lends itself to quiet prayer and contemplation. Beyond the vestibule, the old carved organ is inscribed: “Washington, New York, USA.’’ The organists at Holy Trinity have included: Mrs Margaret Brown, Mrs Cynthia Blair and the teacher’s wife, Mrs Annie Hughes Freer.

Beyond the organ, the aisle leads to the five rows of wooden pews. There is a small pulpit at the north side of the chancel arch. The altar in the sanctuary area stands in front of a lofty ceiling and a tall, three-light East Window. There is a small vestry off the sanctuary area.

During the years that followed the building of the church, many Protestants left the island for one reason or another. But the clergy of Achill and Dugort parish continued to serve the church and the few members of the Church of Ireland who lived on this island.

To mark the arrival of electricity on the island a decade or two ago, a special joint service for members of the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland was held in Holy Trinity Church.

As far as I can find out, no weddings or funerals were held in the church. But successive bishops of Tuam, including Bishop John Neill and Bishop Richard Henderson, had a generous vision for the use of the church, and in 2003, Inishbiggle set an ecumenical landmark when the church was rededicated to serve both the Church of Ireland and the Roman Catholic communities.

There is a small churchyard or cemetery beside the church. As a mark of gratitude, Patrick O’Malley later had a stone wall built around the cemetery, replacing the original sod wall. However, the cemetery has not been used for burials for 80 or 90 years.

A school, predating the church, was standing on this same site in 1870, replacing the first school dating from the 1840s. The teacher lived in the now roofless cottage beyond the church on the edge of the island facing Annagh and the mainland. The cottage was later abandoned, has become roofless, and is falling into ruins.

Donna Allen, in her essay in Cathar na Mart, relies on local memory for recalling some of the Church of Ireland clergy who served on this island: Fitzgerald; Boland; Horn; Abernethy – who left about 1939 to serve in World War II; Marshall, who returned to his native England; Sidebottom; Plowman; and Friess, who was then living in retirement with his wife in Mulranny.

However, as Inishbiggle was always part of the parishes of Achill and Dugort, the Tuam Diocesan Records make it possible to put together a list of all the clergy who served Holy Trinity Church and the Church of Ireland parishioners on the island.

The first recorded rector of Burrishoole and Achill was the Revd John [Horsley] de la Poer Beresford (1773-1855), but he may have never visited either Achill or Inishbiggle. He was born in 1773, and he was a barrister prior to his ordination in 1803. Once he was ordained, he was immediately appointed to this parish by his father, the Archishop of Tuam, William Beresford, 1st Lord Decies. But Archbishop Beresford was not averse to finding sinecures for his sons: another son, George Beresford, was Provost of Tuam, while a third, Canon William Beresford, was Prebendary of Lackagh.

Beresford’s successor, Canon Thomas Mahon (1786/7-1825), was from Co Leitrim, and like most of the rectors he was a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin.

The parishes of Achill and Dugort were sometimes united and sometimes separate parishes. But, as some critics suggest, these were not places to send clergy who were difficult or who found it difficult to find appointments to other parishes. Nor were the clergy outsiders who came in with little experience of or sympathy for the people. Mahon’s successor, Canon John Galbraith (1786-1850), was born in Co Galway, a first cousin of the 1st Earl of Clancarty, and he later became Provost of Tuam (1844-1850).

He was succeeded as Provost of Tuam by Canon Charles Henry Seymour (1813-1879), who was born in Co Mayo, and his father, grandfather, brother and nephew were all priests of the Church of Ireland. He moved from Achill to become Vicar, Provost and then Dean of Tuam, dying there on 14 April 1879, aged 65.

Nor was their interest in mission on Achill and Inishbiggle isolated from the wider mission of the Church. For example, John Galbraith’s daughter, Eileen, translated the New Testament into the Mori language of South Sudann. Canon Thomas Stanley Treanor (ca 1836-1910) was a chaplain with the Mission to Seamen (1878-1910) after leaving Achill in 1878, and wrote about those experiences in Cry from the Sea (1906).

The Revd John Hoffe, curate of Achill (1870-1872) and then Rector of Dugort (1872-1878), left these islands to become curate of Sandford Parish (1878-1879) in Dublin, where his rector was the Revd Thomas Good, who had been a missionary in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in the 1860s and 1870s, and where a previous rector, Canon (later Bishop) William Pakenham Walsh, had worked for the Church Mission Society for ten years.

George Abraham Heather (1830/1-1907), who came to Dugort in 1871, had been secretary of the Church Mission Society Ireland (1863-1867).

Nor should their interest in Irish be dismissed as seeing it as another tool in proselytism or evangelism. Thomas de Vere Coneys, who was curate in Achill (1837-1840), left to become Professor of Irish in Trinity College Dublin in 1840. William Kilbride, curate from 1852-1853, had been the Bedell Scholar in Irish in Trinity College, Dublin (1847), and spent almost half a century as Rector of the Arran Islands from 1855 to 1898. Robert O’Callaghan, curate of Achill from 1857-1861, was also a Bedell Scholar in Irish (1855).

The calibre of the clergy who served these islands is typified by men such as William Skipton (1832/3-1903), who was in Dugort (1861-1867) after Nangle, and later became Dean of Killala (1885-1903). His successor, George Abraham Heather, who was in Dugort from 1867 to 1871, later became Archdeacon of Achonry (1895) and Dean of Achonry (1895-1907).

Their tenacity and commitment is typified by men such as the Revd Michael Fitzgerald (ca 1831-1897), who was so worried about the toll emigration was taking on his parishioners on Inishbiggle. He remained rector of this parish for 15 years until he died at Achill Rectory on 15 July 1897 at the age of 65.

The plaque commemorating Canon Thomas Boland at the west end of Saint Thomas’s Church, Dugort (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

His successor, Canon Thomas Boland (ca 1857-1939), who is remembered in a plaque at the west end of Saint Thomas’s Church, Dugort, had been involved in mission work in Galway for 11 years before coming to Achill and worked here for 40 years. Canon Olaf Vernon Marshall (1907-1978) worked in children’s homes and schools as a chaplain and a superintendent until coming here as Rector of Achill and Dugort (1964-1968). When he moved it was to Omey, the Church of Ireland parish in Clifden, Co Galway.

The Revd Walter Mervyn Abernethy left not to move to England but to become an army chaplain in World War II. When the war ended, he then remained in England, working in parishes mainly in the Dioceses of Norwich and Lichfield.

Bishop John Coote Duggan (1918-2000), who was the rector for only a very brief time (1969-1970), was Archdeacon of Tuam at the same time before becoming Bishop of Tuam (1970-1985).

After becoming bishop, he appointed his curate, the Revd Louis Dundas Plowman (1917-1976) as Bishop’s Curate of Achill and Dugort, and he lived in Achill Rectory. He was a Dublin Corporation official before his ordination in 1969 in his 50s. Canon Plowman later became Rector of Killala and died in Crossmolina Rectory in 1976.

The grave of Dean Herbert Friess and his wife Hildegard Wilhelmina Margarita near the main door of Saint Thomas’s Church, Dugort (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

More recently, the Very Revd Herbert Friedrich Friess (1909-1997), was Rector of Achill and Dugort (1973-1979) and he had an interesting life story. He was born in Germany in 1909, and studied theology at the University of Leipzig (BD 1934). He became a wartime refugee in England, where he served as a German pastor before being ordained deacon and priest by the Church of England Bishop of Sheffield in 1942. After almost a quarter century in parish work in England, he came to Ireland in 1964 as Rector of Crossmolina (1964-1973) and then Dean of Killala (1968-1973). In what must have seemed like a straight swop with Canon Plowman, he became Bishop’s Curate of Achill and Dugort (1973-1979), and lived in the Rectory at Achill Sound.

Dean Friess continued to take Sunday services in Dugort, Achill Sound and Inishbiggle regularly after his retirement, and many people still remember him with affection. He died on 3 April 1997; his wife Hildegard Wilhelmina Margarita (1907-1997) died a few weeks later on 1 May 1997; they are buried together in Saint Thomas’s Churchyard in Dugort.

From 1979, the churches on Achill and Inishbiggle were served by the Rectors of Castlebar and Westport. They have included the Revd William John (‘Jack’) Heaslip (1991-1995), better known today as the chaplain to U2, and Archdeacon Gary Hastings (1995-2009), who has his own take on Irish music.

Looking from Bullsmouth across to Inishbiggle ... Frederick MacNeice left his family at Bullsmouth watching the sunset while he took the Sunday afternoon service in Holy Trinity Church, Inishbiggle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

But apart from the resident rectors and curates, Inishbiggle was also served by visiting clergy and students, who often stayed during the summer months either at the Rectory at Achill Sound, or at the Old Rectory in Dugort.

Perhaps one of the most interesting of those holidaying clergy was Bishop John Frederick MacNeice (1866-1942), father of the poet Louis MacNeice.

Frederick MacNeice first visited Achill in 1911 and ever since had a “special love” for these islands, and he first brought his son Louis with him here in 1927. In 1929, the family stayed at the Old Rectory in Dugort, visiting Keel, climbing Slievemore, and he took services in Dugort, crossing over from Bullsmouth in the late afternoon to take “the Island service” in Inishbiggle, while his family remained at Bullsmouth watching “a beautiful sunset behind Slievemore.”

Frederick returned the following summer (1930), this time without Louis. By then he was a canon of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin; a year later he became Bishop of Cashel (1931), and in 1934 he became Bishop of Down and Dromore.

Three years after his father died, Louis MacNeice returned to Achill in 1945, re-enacting a fraught family holiday 16 years earlier in 1929. One of the poems he wrote afterwards is ‘The Strand’ (1945), published in Holes in the Sky in 1948:

The Strand (1945) by Louis MacNeice

White Tintoretto clouds beneath my naked feet,
This mirror of wet sand imputes a lasting mood
To island truancies; my steps repeat

Someone’s who now has left such strands for good
Carrying his boots and paddling like a child,
A square black figure whom the horizon understood –

My father. Who for all his responsibly compiled
Account books of a devout, precise routine
Kept something in him solitary and wild,

So loved the western sea and no tree’s green
Fulfilled him like these contours of Slievemore
Menaun and Croaghaun and the bogs between.

Sixty-odd years behind him and twelve before,
Eyeing the flange of steel in the turning belt of brine
It was sixteen years ago he walked this shore

And the mirror caught his shape which catches mine
But then as now the floor-mop of the foam
Blotted the bright reflections – and no sign

Remains of face or feet when visitors have gone home.

In conclusion, how can I summarise the history of the Church of Ireland on this island? I could summarise it in the following points:

1, The history of Church of Ireland people on the island is intimately tied in with the first efforts to populate Inishbiggle in the middle decades of the 19th century.

2, Many of them inter-related ... but perhaps to no greater degree than they were inter-related with the other families on these islands.

3, The family names of the Church of Ireland families on Inishbiggle indicate they were from very similar backgrounds to their Catholic neighbours.

4, There was a high degree of intermarriage between members of the Church of Ireland and Catholic families, despite official opposition to intermarriage which intensified after the Ne Temere decree was promulgated in 1908.

5, The higher educational standards among Church of Ireland islanders, no matter how marginal, made it more possible for them to find employment off the island, and so education, ironically, contributed not to improved fortunes for the members of the Church of Ireland, but to their eventual numerical decline.

6, The figures for the Church of Ireland population were always low, and never offered the hope of a sustainable parish on this island.

7, The decline in numbers in the Church of Ireland population on Inishbiggle began in the 1880s, as the Revd Michael Fitzgerald noted in 1883.

8, The clergy who served the Church of Ireland people on Inishbiggle were often fluent in the Irish language, not in a functional way but because they had a genuine cultural and academic interest in the language.

9, Those clergy, residents and visitors like Bishop Frederick MacNeice, often came to these islands with a wider and more compassionate interest in children’s rights, the plight of the poor and the oppressed, and with a genuine interest in education, land reform and culture.

10, The story of the Church of Ireland on this island is not the story of a minority that has slowly faded away, but is a story that can be claimed by everyone who loves these islands, because it is part of what made Achill and Inishbiggle and their people what and who they are today.

APPENDIX

RECTORS, VICARS AND CURATES OF ACHILL

Rectors and Vicars of Burrishoole, Kilmeena and Achill

1803-1809: John [Horsley] de la Poer Beresford
1809-1825: Thomas Mahon
1825-1830: John Galbraith

Rector and Vicars of Achill:

1803-1809: John [Horsley] de la Poer Beresford
1809-1825: Thomas Mahon
1825-1830: John Galbraith
1830-1847: Charles Wilson
1847-1850: Charles Henry Seymour
1850-1852: Edward Nangle
1852-1872: Joseph Barker
1872-1878: Thomas Stanley Treanor
1878-1879: Edward Browne Dennehy
1879-1881: Charles le Poer Trench Heaslop
1882-1897: Michael Fitzgerald
1898-1938: Thomas Boland
1938-1939: Patrick Kevin O’Horan
1939-1942: Walter Mervyn Abernethy
1942-1945: Frederick Rudolph Mitchell
1945-1953: George Harold Kidd
1953-1956: William Fitzroy Hamilton Garstin
1956-1960: George Sidebottom
1964-1969: Olaf Vernon Marshall

1969: Achill grouped with Westport Union

1969-1970: John Coote Duggan (rector).
1969-1971: Louis Dundas Plowman, curate, resident in Achill Rectory.
1970-1972: John Barnhill Smith McGinley (Rector).
1972-1973: Louis Jack Dundas Plowman, bishop’s curate
1973-1979: Herbert Friedrich Friess

1979-1982: Achill served by the Rector of Wesport, the Revd Noel Charles Francis, and the Vicar of Castlebar (1981-1984), the Revd GR Vaughan.

1984-1991: Henry Gilmore, Rector of Castlebar
1991-1995: William John Heaslip
1995-2009: Gary Hastings
2009-present: Val Rogers

Perpetual Curates, Incumbents, of Dugort, Saint Thomas’s

1851: Edward Nangle
18??-1861: Nassau Cathcart
1861-1867: William Skipton
1867-1871: George Abraham Heather
1872-1878: John Hoffe
1879-1886: John Bolton Greer
1886-1890: Vacant
1890-1914: Robert Lauder Hayes
1914-1924: Bertram Cosser Wells

1924: Joined to Achill

Curates of Achill:

1834-1851: Edward Nangle
ca 1837: Joseph Baylee
1837-1840: Thomas de Vere Coneys
1842-1852: Edward Lowe (also curate of Dugort 1852).
1844: John French
1852: Joseph Barker
ca 1852: James Rodgers
1852-1853: William Kilbride
1857-1861: Robert O’Callaghan
1861-1863: Abel Woodroofe
1867: George Abraham Heather
1870-1872: John Hoffe
1873-1876: Robert Benjamin Rowan
1877: Charles Cooney
1879: John Bolton Greer
1910-1912: James O’Connor
1969-1972: Louis Jack Dundas Plowman

Curates of Dugort:

1852: Edward Lowe

This lecture in Holy Trinity Church. Inishbiggle Island, on Sunday 6 May 2013, was part of a guided walk on Inishbiggle Island led by Sheila McHugh during the ninth Annual Heinrich Böll Memorial Weekend 2013. It was followed by poetry readings by Paddy Bushe, Eva Bourke and Jan Wagner, introduced by Mechtild Manus, Director Goethe-Institut Irland.

‘There’s something in the core of me that needs the West to set it free’

Standing on the beach in Keel at noonday today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Patrick Comerford

Normally, a walk on the beach is a good exercise for body, soul and intellect at the weekend. Two weeks on the beach brings on an added bonus. But this weekend I managed to visit six beaches – five on Achill Island, and a sixth at Mulranny on the way back to Dublin.

In all, it was more than a 680 km round trip from the Braemor Park in Dublin to Achill Island, off the west coast of Co Mayo, and back again, getting back to Dublin late this evening [Saturday, 16 February 2013].


Strokestown House ... the Palladian house built in the 18th century by the Pakenham Mahon family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Four of us left Dublin just after noon on Friday and headed west to visit Achill Island. After a brief stop to take some photographs in Edgeworthstown for future research, our first real half-way stop was for a late lunch in Co Roscommon at Strokestown Park House, the 18th century Palladian home of the Pakenham Mahon family until 1981, and now the home of the Famine Museum.

The house was built by Thomas Mahon MP (1701-1782) on lands granted to his grandfather, Nicholas Mahon, in the late 17th century.


The spectacular cliff view on the Atlantic Drive on the south coast of Achill Island on Friday evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

By the time we got to Castlebar, the rain was beginning to come down, and the road out through Burrishoole and Newport was shrouded in mist. By the time we got to Mulranny, it was difficult to see down onto the long stretches of beach or out to Clew Bay, and we decided to continue on the road.

But darkness had not yet fallen by the time we reached Achill Island, and after crossing the Sound we took a detour south along the Atlantic Drive, through Kildavnit, passing the ruined castle associated in legend with Grace O’Malley the pirate queen, by the small quay at Cloghmore, up above the cliffs at Ashleam, and on to Dooega.

We joined the main road to Keel again at Cashel, and, as we passed by the signs to Dugort and the Strand Hotel, I realised that it is a full year since I was last in Achill, when we returned for Martin Walsh’s funeral.

There was a time when Achill was a much-favoured retreat when I wanted to get away and needed a quiet place and write, and found it in the Strand Hotel in Dugort.

I suppose I am a little surprised that as Achill has become more accessible with easier roads from Dublin, I have been here less and less frquently. As we drove across the island, I realised how deserted in winter Achill is.

At Keel, as darkness closed in, we called in to seeTom and Una McNamara. The McNamara family once ran the Boley House, which was the finest restaurant in Achill in its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s.

After dinner in the Achill Cliff House Hotel in Keel, we drove back to Dugort hoping to find a little music and some Friday night life. The Strand Hotel was in complete darkness, but we stll had a short stroll on the beach below and listened to the gentle waves beneath the night skies.

Eventually, we ended up in the Valley House, where a violent incident in the late 19th century inspired John Millington Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World.

Back in the Achill Cliff Hotel in Keel, as I thought of the day ahead of us today, I was reminded of the reasons I returned to Achill so often in the past and was reminded of the words of Oliver St John Gogarty:

There’s something sleeping in my breast
that wakens only in the West.
There’s something in the core of me
that needs the West to set it free.


Looking back on Keel from Lake Corrymore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Through the night we could hear the Atlantic wind howling across the island, and the waves crashing against the rocks and the pebbles on the shore at Keel.

By morning, much of the mist had lifted, and it was dry. Despite the chill in the wind, it was good weather to see more of Achill Island, and we drove up past Captain Boycott’s House up to Corrymore Lake for a view back across much of the island.


785Standing on the beach at Keem Bay this morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

From Corrymore, we took the steep road down to Keem Bay, where the beach was deserted, but the water was sparkling and there were clear views across the seas, with streaks of silver light in the skies and on the sea.


Looking back at Keem Bay this morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

As we climbed back up the road from Keem, we wondered what we were looking at in the water below ... basking sharks? a pair of dolphins? or just rocks?

We stopped in Keel again to have a look at the beach in the daylight. We lingered a little before turning north again, to visit the Deserted Village below Slievemore and to hear again the stories of “booleying” and the impact of the famine in the 1840s.

Further east, still on the slopes of Slievemore, we drove up by Grey’s and the former Slievemore Hotel in the former mission colony built in the mid-19th century by the Revd Edward Nangle.

We were delighted to find the door into Saint Thomas’s Church was was open, thechurch had been reroofed, and a new organ has been installed.


Looking down onto the beach at Dugort towards the Strand Hotel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

We had another look at the beach at Dugort, below the Strand Hotel, and recalled the many many years I stayed in the Strand Hotel time-on-end and went to church in Saint Thomas’s. There were happy memories of many people who had ministered and worshipped in this church over the decades – some of them buried in the churchyard.


A clever sign at the Golden Strand (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

We stopped again at the Golden Strand at Masterson’s. A sign for the restaurnant once said: “Slow Down. Good Food Ahead.” But a clever dollop of what paint had been applied recently, making a witty thrological point worthy of the Vicar of Dibley.

Here we enjoyed yet another lengthy beach, and once again miles and miles of golden sand stretched before us and the golden grass allowed us to imagine that Spring might soon arrive.


Looking toward’s Inisbiggle from the small jetty at Bull’s Mouth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

The road east through Dooniver brought us to Bull’s Mouth, where we stood at the small jetty where two currachs were tied up and another two or three were upended. We stood in wonder for a while beside this tiny beach as we gazed across the narrow water and its deceptively strong currents and cdounter currents to the tiny island of Inisbiggle that lies between Achill and the mainland coast of Co Mayo.

We stopped once again at Achill Sound to buy the morning newspapers, but all four of us decided against visiting the so-called “House of Prayer.”


Standing on the edge of the causeway at Mulranny that leads out into Clew Bay (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

We stopped at the Mulranny Park Hotel for lunch, and then eventually made that good on that long-standing promise to visit the beach below, with its panoramic views out to Clew Bay.

The steep steps below the hotel lead down to a causeway that seems to stretch out infinetly to Clew Bay. We could have lingered longer. I must return in summer to enjoy the visit in the evening sun.

There was one more stop along the way – to visit Saint Nathy’s Cathedral in Balaghdereen. It had been dark for many hours by the time we got back to Dublin tonight.

A walk on the beach in Dugort in the dark

On the sands of the strand in Dugort in the dark last night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Patrick Comerford

After two busy days in Ballyconnell, Co Cavan, on Friday and Saturday at the conference organised by the House of Bishops, I was looking forward to a walk on the beach yesterday (Sunday) afternoon.

I joked on Sunday over lunch that in the space of ten days I had travelled on the road between Virginia and Belturbet alone six times in four different cars. So, a walk on the beach seemed not just a good idea, but a necessary exercise for body, mind and soul.

However, an old friend in Achill Island died at the end of the last week, and when I realised that his funeral was on Monday morning, I had to go to the removal in Achill on Sunday evening or miss altogether the opportunity to say a last farewell to Martin Walsh.

Martin was in his 90s when he died last week. He was one of the “old-timers” and was the oldest man living in Dugort, and one of the oldest men on the island.

I’ve known Martin for over 30 years, since I first started visiting Dugort in 1980 and staying in the Strand Hotel.

For many years, Dugort was one of my favourite boltholes, retreating there, when I needed time to think, to write and to be creative. In winter, without a dial telephone on the island, I was inaccessible; in summer, when the island basked in sunshine with its whitewashed cottages, golden beaches, and blue skies and the blue seas, it was like an Aegean island in Greece.

And Martin was always part of the hospitality and the warm welcome, making sure the Strand Hotel was always available, even in the depths of winter. He was kindness in every way, and a gentleman in true sense of the word.

Looking out on the sands at Mulranny at dusk yesterday (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

It was a 650 km round-trip for two of us yesterday. We left Dublin just after 2 p.m., and stopped briefly to take in the sweeping majesty of the sands and the beaches at Mulranny. How often have I had promised myself a walk on the beach there? But in my desire to press on to Achill I never stopped long enough.

But dusk was beginning to descend, and time was not in our favour. We pressed on again yesterday and we were at Ted Lavelle’s funeral home in Cashel just after 6.

From Cashel, we allowed ourselves a diversion, and drove up through Bunacurry and the Valley, stopping below Martin’s House to take in the view of the beach at Dugort. Although it was dark by now, and the tide was in, we could still see the magnificent arc-shaped strand beneath us. We drove down to the Strand Hotel, parked, and gave ourselves the joy of a five-minute walk in the sands in the dark.

We were in Dookinella for the removal and reception at 7.30 last night.

The old stairs in the Strand Hotel, Dugort … this hotel has been a favourite retreat for writing and thinking (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Afterwards, we had a half-hour stopover back in the Strand Hotel, where we got a warm welcome from Billy Scott. It’s almost three years since I was last there, but it could have been last week.

There was a warm offer of hospitality for the night. But we had to press on, and we were soon back out on the road again, facing another 315 km to Dublin, with Fleetwoood Mac, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Derek and the Dominoes, the Doors, Van Morrison, Think Lizzie, the Rolling Stones and Leonard Cohen for company.

We were back in the early hours of this morning (Monday).

They buried Martin early this afternoon in the old cemetery in Slievemore.

And now I’m packing once again, preparing to fly to Edinburgh tomorrow morning (Tuesday).

Remembering 1798 in Castlebar

John Cooney toasting Dr Sheila Mulloy after the book launch in Castlebar last night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Patrick Comerford

We toasted the Westport historian Dr Sheila Mulloy at dinner in An Carraig restaurant in Chapel Street, Castlebar, last night after the launch of the launch of a new book that looks at the key personalities involved in the 1798 Rising in Co Mayo.

The book, Victory or Glorious Defeat: Biographies of Participants in the Mayo Rebellion of 1798, is edited by Sheila and is the culmination of many years of work on her part.

It was a beautiful summer evening, and I had travelled from Dublin to Castlebar with another contributor to this collection, John Cooney, who has contributed a study of General Humbert.

The book was being launched by Dr Harman Murtagh, President of the Military History Society of Ireland, in Mayo County Library, which overlooks the Mall, which is at the heart of Castlebar.

Castlebar is the birthplace of Charlie Haughey, and the home of politicians such as Enda Kenny, Padraig Flynn and Beverly Flynn. But the history of the town dates back to a settlement that grew up around the de Barry castle, built in 1235 on the site of the present army barracks at the end of Castle Street. The town received a royal charter from King James I in 1613.

The Bingham family, who became landlords of Castlebar in the 17th century, later became Earls of Lucan, and the Mall was originally Lord Lucan’s cricket green.

The Mall was Lord Lucan’s cricket grounds and linked the Bingham townhouse with the Church of Ireland parish church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

The present 7th Earl of Lucan is missing since 1974, but the Bingham family still owns large tracts of the town and of Co Mayo, and in the 18th and 19th centuries the Mall provided a link between the town house of the Earls of Lucan, formerly Lawn House and now Saint Joseph’s Secondary School, and the Church of Ireland parish church, Christ Church, diagonally across the Mall.

Church Church is one of the oldest surviving buildings in Castlebar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Christ Church is one of the most important historical buildings in Castlebar, and at present there is an active fundraising programme for the restoration of the church roof. The churchyard has an elaborate but decaying memorial to Major-General George O Malley, a general in the British Army who fought in North America, Egypt, and the Mediterranean, and who was wounded twice at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. He died in 1847 but is buried not in Castlebar but in his family burial plot in Murrisk Abbey.

General O’Malley’s monument ... a crumbling memory of the Napoleonic wars (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

The first recorded Rector of Castlebar was the Revd David de Burgo in 1430, and the church’s interior is an excellent record of Castlebar from 1590. The present building was completed in 1739, and nearby Ellison Street is named after the Revd Thomas Ellison, Rector of Castlebar from 1790-1805. The Ellisons were land agents on behalf of the Earls of Lucan in Castlebar and had the Bingham and Ellison families were intermarried.

The gravestone of Frazier’s Fencibles is the only surviving contemporary record in Castlebar of the events in 1798(Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Ellison was also rector of Castlebar during the dramatic events of 1798. Ellison and Bishop Joseph Stock were held captive in Killala Castle by General Humbert and his French forced. The church was badly damaged that year, and was renovated between 1800 and 1828. Inside the main gate of Christ Church is the only surviving contemporary record in Castlebar of the events in 1798: the gravestone of Frazier’s Fencibles, a Scottish Regiment killed in action in 1798.

The French forces under the command of General Humbert took part in a rout of the English garrison in the town – a rout that was so thorough it has passed into local folklore under the name of “The Races of Castlebar.”

The site of Geevy’s Hotel, where General Humbert stayed in Castlebar … it was here too that John Moore was declared first President of Connaught (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

A short-lived republic of Connaught was proclaimed, and General John Moore from Moore Hall, leader of the Mayo United Irishmen and the brother of a local landowner, was named president. He was reburied at a corner of the Mall in 1961, at the end the slope beneath Christ Church.

The 1798 memorial at the bottom of the slope beneath Christ Church ... the wording in Irish makes an unfortunate set of claims for Irish identity (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

His grave is beside the 1798 Monument, erected in 1948 to commemorate the 150th Anniversary of the Races of Castlebar. It is such a pity that the inscription in Irish implies that the only true Irish identity is to be found in a particular expression of Catholicism.

On the opposite side of the Mall once stood the hanging tree where the rebel priest, Father Conroy was hanged in 1798. The tree stood beside the Methodist Church – John Wesley laid the foundation for the church just over a decade earlier in 1785.

Opposite the former Methodist Church and the site of the hanging tree, the former Imperial Hotel is falling into a serious state of disrepair. It has been closed for some years, and the asking price is said to be €1 million. It is hard to imagine that such neglect should be the fate of the famous hotel where the Irish National Land League was founded by Michael Davitt on 21 October 1879.

The Imperial Hotel ... memories for sale (PhotographL Patrick Comerford, 2010)

Victory or Glorious Defeat: a book launch in Castlebar

Patrick Comerford

I am in Castlebar, Co Mayo, this evening, for the launch of a new book that looks at the 1798 Rising in Co Mayo. The book, Victory or Glorious Defeat: Biographies of Participants in the Mayo Rebellion of 1798, is edited by the Westport historian, Dr Sheila Mulloy, and is the culmination of many years of work on her part.

The book is being launched in Mayo County Library by Dr Harman Murtagh, President of the Military History Society of Ireland.

At 2 p.m. on Wednesday, 22 August 1798, just over 1,000 French troops landed at Kilcummin Strand in Co Mayo to launch a rebellion in the name of liberty in the west of Ireland. Reinforced by several thousand raw recruits, this small army made sensational progress initially, capturing Killala and Ballina and defeating a government force nearly twice its strength in a spectacular victory at Castlebar.

However, it all ended in tragedy, at Ballinamuck, Co Longford, on 8 September, where, after a token fight, the French were made prisoners of war. The Irish who had accompanied them were slaughtered mercilessly, and a wave of ruthless repression in Mayo ensued.

This long-awaited book is a collection of 11 essays by leading scholars and is edited by the Westport historian, Dr Sheila Mulloy, who also edited the three-volume Franco-Irish Correspondence, December 1688 - February 1692 (1984). For over 20 years. Sheila was the editor of Cathair na Mart, the journal of the Westport Historical Society, to which I contributed papers in 1998 and 1999. She is a recipient of the Humbert School’s ‘Champion of the West’ award.

This book is concerned with the personalities who became involved in these events, ranging from General Humbert himself to more colourful figures such as ‘Citizen’ John Moore and Baron Vippler O’Dowda on the rebel side, and General Lake, and Denis ‘The Rope’ Browne on the government side. The eleven essays, written by leading scholars, include accounts of significant figures such as Bartholomew Teeling, James Joseph MacDonnell and Father Manus Sweeney, as well as examining the folk memory of the events and the experiences of the United Irishmen transported to Australia.

The book is introduced by Harman Murtagh and the contributors are Guy Beiner, Patrick Comerford, John Cooney, Desmond McCabe, Conor MacHale, Sheila Mulloy, Harman Murthagh, Ruán O’Donnell, James Quinn and Christopher J. Woods.

Bishop Joseph Stock ... a biographical study and an analysis of his role and the role of his diocesan clergy in 1798

My essay is a biographical study of Bishop Joseph Stock, with an analysis of his role and the role of the Church of Ireland clergy in his diocese during those events in August and September 1798. My former colleague in The Irish Times, John Cooney, has written a study of General Humbert.

The contributors are described in the book as follows:

Dr Sheila Mulloy edited the three-volume Franco-Irish Correspondence, December 1688 – February 1692 (1984) and was the editor of Cathair na Mart, the journal of the Westport Historical Society, for over twenty years.

Guy Beiner is a senior lecturer of history at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. He was a Government of Ireland scholar at University College Dublin, a Government of Ireland research fellow at Trinity College Dublin and a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow in Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame. His book Remembering the Year of the French: Irish Folk History and Social Memory (University of Wisconsin Press, 2007) won several international awards.

John Cooney, the Founder-Director of the Humbert Summer School in Co Mayo, is a history MA honours graduate of the University of Glasgow and a former Honorary Fellow at the University of Aberdeen. He is preparing a major biography of General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert. A journalist with the Irish Independent, broadcaster and author, he is the biographer of John Charles McQuaid, Ruler of Catholic Ireland (O’Brien Press, Dublin, 1999). He also writes the weekly ‘Beyond the Pale’ column for the Western People.

Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation at the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, Dublin, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. A former Foreign Desk Editor of The Irish Times, he studied theology at the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin, the Kimmage Mission Institute, Maynooth, and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He has published studies of Church of Ireland clergy in 1798 in the dioceses of Ferns and Ossory. He is a contributor to numerous books, journals and other publications.

Conor Mac Hale is a former secondary teacher and part-time university lecturer, specialising in computer-related topics. His interest in the O’Dubhdas and local history was awakened in 1971 by the publication of his mother’s book Stories from O’Dowda’s Country. He has since published several items, as well as lecturing on historical and genealogical research at local, national and international events, and acting as a research assistant at the Irish National Folklore Collection. His published historical works include The O’Dubhda Family History (C. Mac Hale, Inniscrone, 1990), Annals of the Clan Egan (C. Mac Hale, Inniscrone, 1990), The French Invasion of Ireland in 1798 (with Thomas Dowds) (IHR, Dublin, 2000) and Inishcrone & O’Dubhda Country (IHR, Dublin, 2003).

Desmond McCabe is currently working on the official history of the Office of Public Works (Ireland). He has worked on aspects of Irish urban history in the Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester; in the Irish Famine Project (based in Trinity College, Dublin) and on the Dictionary of Irish Biography (RIA). Most of his published work has been on the social history of 19th century Ireland. Born in Dublin, his mother was from Corraun, in the parish of Achill, Co Mayo.

Harman Murtagh was senior lecturer in law and Irish studies at the Athlone Institute of Technology, where he is a visiting fellow. His publications include the ‘Athlone’ fascicle of the Royal Irish Academy’s Irish Historic Towns Atlas, Athlone: history and settlement to 1800, The battle of the Boyne 1690 and contributions to many scholarly books and journals, especially on military history, biography and settlement studies, with a focus on the Jacobite wars. His essay ‘General Humbert’s futile campaign’ was published in 1798: a bicentenary perspective (Four Courts Press 2003). He is President of the Military History Society of Ireland, was editor of The Irish Sword for 25 years, and is Vice-president of the Group for the Study of Irish Historic Settlement.

Ruán O’Donnell is the Head of the History Department at the University of Limerick. He has written extensively on the history of the United Irishmen and Irish republicanism worldwide. O’Donnell is a graduate of University College Dublin and the Australian National University. Originally from Dublin, he lives in Limerick with his wife Maeve and children Ruairi, Fiachra, Cormac and Saoirse.

James Quinn is a graduate of University College Dublin and the Executive Editor of the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of Irish Biography, published in nine volumes by Cambridge University Press in November 2009. His many publications on eighteenth and nineteenth-century Irish history include the biographies Soul on Fire: a Life of Thomas Russell (Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 2002) and John Mitchel (University College Dublin Press, Dublin, 2008).

C.J. Woods retired in 2006 from the staff of the Royal Irish Academy, where from 1969 he was employed at different times as a research assistant on A New History of Ireland and as a contributor to the Dictionary of Irish Biography. He is the editor of Journals and Memoirs of Thomas Russell, 1791-5 (Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 1991) and a co-editor of The Writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone, 1763-98 (3 vols, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998-2007) as well as author of articles on O’Connell and Parnell and Travellers’ accounts as source-material for Irish historians (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2009).

Victory or Glorious Defeat: Biographies of participants in the Mayo Rebellion of 1798, edited by Dr Sheila Mulloy (Dublin: Original Writing, 2010), Paperback, ISBN: 978-1-907179-75-4 (€17).